Shrub's Axis of Stupidity

Our Commander in Chief recently named an "Axis of Evil." But the real danger is his own Axis of Stupidity.

Most Americans realize that the present occupant of the White House wasn't really, you know, popularly elected, but jimmied his way into the mansion by virtue of family connections (Daddy's friends plus a very helpful brother who just happened to be Florida's Governer), lots of Enron political slush-money that earlier bought the Shrub keys to the Texas Governer's mansion, topped off by an uncharacteristically counter States-Rights decision by a supposedly conservative Supreme Court. But we can handle it, since such skullduggery has been just under the surface in US politics for awhile now. The CIA likely shot John Kennedy to keep him from shutting down the heroin cashflow in Southeast Asia. Nixon got caught targeting a domestic "enemies list" and sending burglars into the Democratic National Committee. Reagan's spear-chuckers devised a very creative double-Faustian bargain with "arms for hostages" to ensure Carter's defeat by simultaneously pandering to Iran's ruling assholes and propping up the CIA sponsored murderous military in Nicaragua. It's clear that big money buys national politics and our national politicians are all just whores to Big Oil and Hollywood. What else is new?

Well, what's new is that we've got a dummy in the White House, Enron buddies in Cabinet and other senior positions, a fundamentalist Attorney General, a media-whore FCC Chairman, and a Big-5 lobbyist SEC Chairman. We also have a few real problems, like a new forever War On Terrorism, an old forever War On Drugs, budget surpluses that magically reversed into inflationary budget deficits, a military spending spree that dwarfs Star Wars, and by-the-way, a recession with millions of people out of work, extensions to unemployment benefits (like that really helps), and rampant stupidity.

One doesn't know which is more alarming, Dubya's stupidity or his corporate handlers led by Dick Cheney. After all, the country did survive Gerald Ford's administration. But GW just seems to be piling dumb on dumber as he spends more of his time mismanaging our affairs. He started by pissing off 90% of the world by rejecting US commitments to resolving global warming issues. Then he declares an open-ended war on terrorists (who by definition can't be confronted easily), cripples all the airlines - a major factor in the economy - with a bunch of stupid "security" rules that dissuade travelers without doing anything really more secure, effectively tramples all over Constitutional Rights, forgives the most virulent monopoly threatening technology competition in this next century, pushes a hopeless missile defense boondoggle, names an Axis of Evil gratuitously, gives the finger to Russia, Iran, and China with a leaked nuclear retargeting study, stirs the pot in the Middle East further without any real plan, and talks tough about Saddam Hussein without means to back it up. All taken together, this has to qualify as genius level fucking-up on a global scale. Dubya and friends must work at this.

Bush lite, Cheney, Ashcroft, White, Powell Jr., and Wolfowitz, et al . . . a clear and present danger, an Axis of Stupidity. I for one simply hope we will live long enough to vote all these lame and dangerous bastardos emphatically out of power.